


Intransitive

by Isis



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/M, Kissing, Language, Not Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-19 14:27:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3613371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/pseuds/Isis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Verbs are the action words, things that happen:  driving, kissing, dying. Transitive verbs are done to someone. Intransitive verbs just happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intransitive

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to flyingcarpet for beta-reading.

**_"Maybe it wouldn’t hurt if I kiss you," he whispered. "Maybe it’s only if you kiss me." - Blue Lily, Lily Blue_ **

"Come get me," she says, and hangs up the phone before Orla hears, before Calla hears, before her mother hears.

They are twenty miles from Henrietta, the Pig roaring, vibrating, sending little shivers up her spine, before she puts her hand on his leg. "I think you're right," she says quietly. She knows he's attuned to her voice, can hear it cutting through the engine noise.

Immediately he pulls over, drives on the bumpy shoulder to where a gravel road shoots off toward a set of communication towers, blinking red in the darkness. He turns onto the gravel road, which winds up the hillside and ends at the chain-link fence topped with barbed wire that surrounds the towers. When he kills the engine, the quiet is as startling as though it were a noise all its own. It's too cold for birds or bugs, this late in the year. The sound of distant traffic swells and fades, like waves crashing on a far-off beach.

"What am I right about?" His voice is appropriately hushed.

"Once you said that you thought that maybe it was only if it was me kissing you. I asked – well, not exactly asked, not in those words, but I asked."

She learned about parts of speech in English class. Verbs are the action words, things that happen: driving, kissing, dying. Transitive verbs are done to someone. Intransitive verbs just happen. 

Kissing is a transitive verb. Blue kissing Gansey is different from Gansey kissing Blue. One is dangerous, forbidden, fatal. The other is – 

_"How many times have we told you?" Maura asked, exasperated. "This isn't anything you don't know, Blue."_

_"But I'm the subject, right? He's the object. If I kiss my true love he dies. What if he kisses me?"_

_"It's kissing! If you kiss him, he's kissing you."_

_"But what if I kiss him on the cheek?"_

_"Then you've kissed him. End of story."_

_"What if he kisses me on the cheek?"_

_Maura narrowed her eyes. "I don't like where this is going. Are you planning to be kissed on the cheek?"_

_"I just want to –"_

_"Trust me. They never stop at just kissing on the cheek. You're going to want to kiss him back. And you are_ not _to kiss him back, do you understand?"_

_"I understand," she said obediently. And that night she crept downstairs to the phone room, and called Gansey._

"It's okay, then?" he says, and it's obvious he's been thinking about it as much as she has. His hand covers hers, curls around her fingers. 

"It's okay," she breathes. "I want –" and she doesn't get to say anything else because he pulls her to him, and his lips are on her forehead, on her cheek, on her neck. He lets go of her hand and she pulls off her sweater; his fingers fumble at the buttons of her shirt. 

He kisses her collarbone along its edge, from the end by her shoulder to the little hollow at her neck. "It's only if you kiss me," he murmurs, burying his head against her breasts. "So don't kiss me, Jane. Let me kiss you."

The top of his head is so tempting. His tousled hair brushes her chin, soft like a kitten's fur. She puts one hand to her mouth so she can't kiss anything but her own skin. But it's so hard to let him do things to her without doing things to him in return. He tongues at a nipple and she lets her head fall back against the back of the seat. Her other hand strokes his hair, slides down his neck.

It's glorious, it's wonderful. Gansey is kissing her breasts, kissing a line down her stomach, whispering nonsense phrases into her skin. His fingers dip down under the waistband of her jeans before sliding up her sides again, counting her ribs, shaping her breasts. She can touch him with her fingers, can't she? Isn't that as good as touching him with her lips?

His fingers are at the end of his hands are at the end of his arms. His mouth is right there against her body, soft and warm.

She finds that the hand at her mouth has bent itself into a fist. She finds that her face is wet with tears. Crying, she thinks, is an intransitive verb. It's not done to someone. It just happens.


End file.
